


Learning to Train

by nataliefn



Series: Gated Pets [2]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Biting, Choke Chains, F/M, Four Quadrants, Human Pets, M/M, Prong Collars, Training, gated community
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-11
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-08-19 09:14:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20207317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nataliefn/pseuds/nataliefn
Summary: Tywin has had enough of the out of control pets, it's time to bring in some help.





	1. Non-Optional

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nanners (nanjcsy)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanjcsy/gifts).

> So I'd just like to note that in real life I'm a "positive reinformcent" trainer but for the sake of writing material, Jeor is a "balanced" trainer. This totally brought out my inner dog training nerd, thank you Nanners for the writing prompt! I'm not going to lie, a lot of these accounts are inspired by clients I encountered when I used to teach classes!

You know those events where everyone's pointing fingers and no one wants to look at themselves? This is definitely one of those events.

If someone were actually listening during Tywin's speech, perhaps they would have agreed that it was a logical step, instead everyone was concerned about losing their pets. There were many accounts of why it was happening.

First off was Joffrey biting the mailman resulting in no one wanting to do the route anymore. Which was completely reasonable given the twelve stitches and plastic surgery that would be needed to fix it. The Baratheon's other pets, the brutish brothers that scared everyone and would bark constantly if something came near the property. 

Or their was Jon marking over everything in the neighborhood.

Arya and Rickon digging up gardens and destroying property.

Reek's incessant crying anytime Ramsay left the house and the time he got scared, causing thousands of dollars in property damage. Then resulting him in getting into Drogo's yard and being nearly killed. The pissing match between Daenerys and Ramsay went on for months.

Robb, Sansa, Bran, Myrcella, Tommen, and the twins were the only ones spared from scrutiny, but even they were being pulled into it. Tywin couldn't play favorites of course.

Dany and Ramsay glared at each other across the room until Roose slapped him upside the head.

"Now, if you all wish to keep your pets, its very simple. You will all attend one training class a week for four weeks. Then at the end of the month, we will hold Pet Good Citizen Test. Any pets that don't hold the title, will either have to be rehomed outside of the community or euthanized."

The community, much to everyone's dismay, took money out of the savings account to pay for the trainer. Jeor Mormont.

Ramsay walked in with his prong collar and Reek obediently walking beside him, totally expecting praise for how wonderfully behaved his pet was. So it came as a shock when the man, didn't say anything just handed him a flat buckle collar and gave him a pointed look.

"There are four quadrants to keep in mind while training; positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, negative punishment, and positive punishment. You can not use one quadrant with out affecting another. Positive reinforcement is adding a desirable stimulus to increase the frequency of behavior. Negative reinforcement is removing an undesirable stimulus to increase the frequency of the behavior. Negative punishment is removing a desirable stimulus to decrease the frequency of a behavior. Finally positive punishment is adding a undesirable stimulus to decrease the frequency of a behavior." He'd looked over at Ramsay while he was talking about positive punishment. "With every training exercise you do, you need to know the immediate reactions and the fall out. I will determine who needs what tools to be trained, while we can use all of the quadrants there needs to be a balance of it. Each pet is going to have a different scale of what will work for them. 

It is very important that you are taking these exercises home as well and working on them. I'll know if you've been training at home or not.

Now, since I've gotten here, I've been watching all of your pets. Some of them are more desperate for training than others. Now since I have one pet here that has gone through my training, before his owners decided that they no longer needed professional help apparently, I'll be using him as my demo-pet for these sessions. Robb come."

Catelyn had been trying so hard to keep a good grip on the other leashes that she had dropped Robb's in the process. The look of shock on her face was evident as Robb left to go sit perfectly in front of Jeor. His hands rested just an centimeter from his boots, perfectly in line, his neck craned all the way up to stare at the trainer.

"Good boy Robb," he praises, tousling his curls and unclipping the leash. Draping the material across his own neck instead. "Get side," he orders and the pet swung his butt around, to sit perfectly next to his side. Everyone looked amazed at how well behaved the pet was being. "I will have high expectations out of all of you. Let's get started."


	2. Friendly Stranger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This test demonstrates that the pet will allow a friendly stranger to approach it and speak to the handler in a natural, everyday situation. The evaluator walks up to the pet and handler and greets the handler in a friendly manner, ignoring the pet. The evaluator and handler shake hands and exchange pleasantries. The dog must show no sign of resentment or shyness.

First Jeor demonstrated with Robb how it should look. He had Tywin act as the evaluator as he was simply there to observe and make sure everyone complied. They had run through what he needed to do beforehand. Keeping the pet by his side, Tywin approached them and shook hands with Jeor. They then held a few minutes of conversation all while Robb watched Jeor's face obediently. When they were done, he produced a tug out of his back pocket offering it to Robb. The pet excitedly grabbed the other end and tugged with him for a few seconds until Joer said "release". Then he went back to sitting perfectly, looking even more prideful than usual at everyone's oo's and aa's.

It had been agreed that those with excess pets would rotate through theirs which meant they'd have a lot more work to do at home. They started off with; Jon, Sansa, Arya, Reek, Joffrey, Myrcella, Tommen(who was being handled by Jamie Lannister the owners brother), Loras, and Drogo. Sandor, Gregor, Rickon, Bran, and Margery were in crates on the side of the room. Three of which Joer had to put a flag partition in front of to keep his class a reasonable level of noise. Even with this up, Rickon continued to screech. Joer was going to be addressing this soon enough.

Jon was behaving perfectly with Ned as Jeor walked over, easily being just as good as Robb had been. Who was sitting in a kennel off to the side, being rewarded with a juicy bone to chew on in between exercises. It was pretty impressive until the trainer pulled the rug out from under them. "From my understanding its not him with you that's the problem but when he's out with Catelyn. Why don't you take Sansa and Arya, Catelyn can work with Jon." Even Jon's head whipped around to stare nervously. With a little more prompting they switched leashes. Catelyn had pulled Jon over, yanking the leash up and yelling at him to sit, when he didn't comply she pushed a hand down on his back until he did so. The pet was shaking nervously and Catelyn was planning on ignoring him until she couldn't.

Arya took a different route, actually jumping on Ned and head butting him in the face. "Arya, Arya, Arya stop!" He was tugging down on the leash but as soon as he let up, she was jumping back up. Ned was getting visibly frustrated with his pet. Sansa meanwhile was sitting there looking disgusted with her sister.

Jeor almost rolled his eyes at the both of them. "Okay both of you stop, let's start with the easy one, Ned what would you rather Arya be doing."

Ned looked shocked right before Arya head butted him again. "I want her to sit next to me and wait for a command," he says holding his nose and pretending like his eyes weren't watering.

"Very well, then ask her to sit."

Ned blocked an incoming headbutt and firmly said, "Arya sit." The pet paused, now that she could do as long as she got a treat. She sat down and waited but it was clear she was ready to break any moment.

Jeor looked annoyed that he had to hand feed it to Ned. "Shouldn't you reward her, she just did what you asked." Ned fumbled handing her a treat from his training pouch that they'd been required to bring to class. "Good job Ned. Work on that until I come back around. Now Cat." His eyes turned on the cowering pet and the stone faced woman. "Jon is being obedient, what do you think you should do?"

"Not beat him for insolence," she says, clearly not wanting to work with the pet.

Jeor actually looked shocked at that answer. "Give him a few treats and tell him he did good."

"Why?"

"Would you want to work for someone and not get paid?" With a sigh, Catelyn produced a treat and handed it to Jon who just turned his head away. Frustrated, she followed his face trying to shove it into his mouth. "This isn't a punishment, praise him and then offer it again."

"Good boy," she says through clenched teeth.

"Stop- just pat him on the head." "Nicely," he adds when she goes in roughly. "Good now ask him to sit next to you." He was already sitting so she just looked down and looked back up at him. Shaking Cat's hand, they continued to discuss how to properly praise Jon. Then when they were done, he urged to use any method of praise, maybe something Jon liked. He had to walk away to keep from yelling when she just muttered "good pet" at him.

Next to them was Loras and his owner, Renly. Much to his dismay the pet was humping Renly's leg as the owner laughed and tried haphazardly to push him off. "Do not let him do that," Joer says shocked. He completed the exercise with him, shaking his head at the rather public show. He'd never allow his pet to hump his leg in private, let alone in a public place.

He hated to admit it but his next client scared the crap out of him. Drogo was a big, fierce beast with a very tiny handler. He stared up at her like she was his goddess but the moment his eyes were on anyone else, it was a look that incited terror. The completed the exercise with ease but he wasn't looking forward to actually having to touch the pet.

Tommen and Myrcella did wonderfully. Both of them behaving like pets should. So it was quite the shock with Joffrey lunged out and grabbed his pant leg, scraping skin on the way with his jaw. If he had been bigger, Joer might actually be intimidated, instead he was annoyed at the bad behavior. It was even more of a shock when Cersei rolled him over onto his back and held him by his neck as a punishment. Joer was going to need an extra large drink after this. "No, stop that, what are you aiming for him to learn by that?"

"That I'm the alpha, not him."

"You sound ridiculous, the alpha theory was completely disproved, you're not teaching him anything. Let him up and wait here." Joer went over to his bag and grabbed a gold choke chain. Then going back, he took the leash from Cersei and led Joffrey out to the middle of the room. "This is a pet that has been allowed to get out of control with no rules and has realized that he can get away with anything. Biting is an absolutely unacceptable behavior from a pet." When Joffrey went to do just that, Joer gave a harsh correction, shocking both owner and pet. The moment he came out of it, Joffrey went immediately back in for a bite, but Joer was ready this time he lifted straight up letting the pet choke for a second. This continued for an entire minute before the insolent pet finally stood still, fuming. Slipping the chain over Joffrey's head, he took off the rhinestone collar and reattached the leash. "When he lunges forward to bite," he says, walking back over to Cersei, "Lift straight up to tighten the collar, when he stops fighting, let down the slack. Understand?" After another five minutes of practice, they were able to get through the exercise.

Finally there was Reek who he was least looking forward to working with. The arguing was almost immediate, Ramsay insisting that he was the alpha and Reek was under him in the pack. Of course Ramsay thought he was, he probably got off on the submission of his pet. Talk about toxic masculinity.

"Whether you want to believe me or not, if you don't want to end up with your pet euthanized, I'd recommend listening to what I have to say." Ramsay stopped arguing after that. "Now, hand me the leash. Don't argue just do it." Reek seemed freaked about this, pinning himself onto the floor, looking about ready to piddle. Joer put a knot in the leash that would come undone if it became too tight, so if Ramsay gave a correction or Reek tugged on it. "Now ask him to sit next to you," he says handing back the leash.

"Reek, heel." The pet complied, plastering himself to his master's leg.

Joer took it and shook Ramsay's hand, feeling the urge to go wash his own now. "You have a great pet here but he is clearly terrified of you. You need to be nice to him or he's going to break if he hasn't already." It was very clear that he didn't agree with Ramsay's training method. The pet was becoming increasingly more fearful as Ramsay became more angry at the man, slowly slinking to hide behind his master's legs. When Ramsay tried to drag him back with the leash, the knot obviously came undone. "You know what you need to work on," Mormont says, "Now offer him some treats for being good, he's working hard for you."

It was obvious that this was a trap and Ramsay looked at him. "I didn't bring any."

"Of course not, you think you're perfect and so is your pet. Next time, bring everything that is on my syllabus."

He practiced with Sansa and worked with Arya some more before moving on to the next behavior.

Joer found he was giving the same commands to the Starks for Rickon that he gave with Arya. Except where Arya was very intelligent and wanted to learn, Rickon was about as feral as he could have imagined. The pet was a rocket of energy, using the end of the leash to circle around and around, knocking over anyone in his way. It took only a few minutes of this before he decided that he was taking the leash on this pet.

"Rickon, sit," the pet jumped up and went for his face, clearly not being aggressive just overly excitable. Before he made contact, Joer gave a harsh jerk down, knocking the pet over. "Rickon sit." Rickon barely reacted, instead bouncing right back up. This went on for fifteen minutes of the class, everyone was watching the stand off, wondering who would crack first. A couple of times, Joer was able to keep the pet down long enough to work on a lure to the sit but Rickon easily became overstimulated and jumped back up. It was at the end of those fifteen minutes that for a brief second Rickon's butt touched the ground and Joer dropped a handful of treats, jack-potting him. "Good boy."

Taking the pet by the collar, he led him over to his training bag and pulled out an e-collar. Cat gasped as he fitted it to the pet. "You can't be serious, he's a baby."

"This pet is absolutely out of control," Joer says, pinning Rickon between his legs so he could struggle the collar onto him. "He needs something a little stronger and more immediate." Leading him back out to the training floor, he allowed Rickon to jump up, keeping his hand with the leash low so he couldn't smack him in the face with his entire body. The pet was fit there was no doubt about that. Now when he jumped up, Joer began pressing the remote and giving the pet shocks, starting with a low level and slowly working up until he began getting the reaction he wanted from the young pet. Rickon was thinking twice about what he was doing, which allowed Joer the chance to work with him on the ground on sitting. Finally the pet was getting it, it took practically to the end of class to also teach the Stark's what he wanted them to do with their insubordinate pet.

Sandor and Gregor were pretty straight forward and oddly enough some of the most well behaved, even if they were intimidating. Much like with Drogo, he wasn't looking forward to having to pet them, let alone run a brush over them.

Margery was perfectly behaved and Bran wasn't too bad, despite his owners literally handing him handfuls of treats for no reason. The pet, who's back legs were supported on wheels, truly knew how to work the sympathy card. Even Joer found himself handing him a few extra treats.


End file.
